Rain situation improving in Gujarat

July 31, 2006 12:53 IST

Situation in rain-battered south and central Gujarat is improving with receding rains and rail and road traffic opening up on Monday, amidst reports of people and school children stranded at some places due to water-logging, official sources said.

Some schoolchildren were stranded in a village school due to water logging near Dholka in Ahmedabad district, officials said.

An Ahmedabad fire brigade team comprising 21 members has rushed to the spot to rescue the stranded, fire brigade officials said. In another incident, around 80 students and five staff members were stranded on the second floor of a boarding school in Bhattalavdi village of Khambhat taluka in South Gujarat.

Officials

were trying to rescue them by boats. Meanwhile, state flood control sources said intensity of rains has receded since Sunday night.

More than 50,000

people from south and central Gujarat have been shifted to safer places as a precautionary measure, officials said. Rail and road traffic was returning to normal but trains are still running late by three to four hours, railway officials said.

There have been two rain-related deaths so far in Sangli while a three-year-old

girl, who went missing after a rescue boat overturned in Valva taluka, remains untraced, District Collector Rajendra Chavan told PTI, adding that the situation was not serious as the intensity of rains has decreased.